The Show

Cherry looks at the sex sling. And back to the bald man, wearing nothing but a powder blue teddy, who’s giving her a tour of the party. At the heaving buttocks everywhere around her. At the bald man. At the lesbians going at it in the pantry. At the bald man. Outwardly, she’s calm. Inside, she’s a wilderness of shrieking monkey-nerves. What will she do? She’s not a freak. She’s an English teacher, a PhD, a self-proclaimed snort-laughing dork. She wants to run out of this ordinary suburban orgy at top speed and take an hour-long shower. But she’s also lonely, bored, and horny, and she doesn’t know anyone else in town. And she’s curious: what happens if she stays? What will she find herself doing—if she stays?

Reading my Dad’s Porn and French Kissing the Dog is the story of how a freak gets to be freaky, of how a Velma becomes a Cherry, of what English teachers do on their night out. The show follows the adventures of Cherry Zonkowski, PhD, as she takes on the suburban living rooms, crowded dungeons, and ultra-hip warehouses of the San Francisco sex and artist party scenes. But she’s no tame observer; she’s there to get her feet wet and her hands dirty—literally. Between adventures, she takes the audience with her as she reconstructs the evolution of an outsider, sharing memories of her Texas childhood, her military dad (he’s a drunk), and their family’s jarring move to Norway.